He touches me
by clothsofheaven
Summary: Hermione stumbles upon Harry's diary. Contains slash. Harry and other male...you'll have to read to find out who...


Thanks to Sanguiyn my wonderful beta, who not only saves me from grammatical errors, but also dresses as a super hero when she does it.

**Warning: **Contains slash!

**Disclaimer:**

I read a book ages ago where a girl finds the diary of a dead girl and she unlocks the code in it the same way Hermione does with Harry's. I can't remember the name...it was something beach...or something shores...anyway I can't remember. But the point is that it is not mine.

You all know that I don't own the Harry Potter characters (JKR does). But if I did, something like this would happen to them...

"Harry, where are you going?"

Hermione's voice cracked like a whip across the common room, causing Harry to freeze and cringe at his position near the portrait hole. He had wanted to slip out unnoticed.

"I'm just going to return a library book," he answered quickly, disappearing out of the common room before Hermione could question him any further.

Hermione turned to Ron who was currently occupied with a packet of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. "He's hiding something from us."

"Oh, stop jumping to conclusions," Ron replied through a mouthful of candies. "He's just returning a library book."

"He wasn't even holding a book!" Hermione cried in disbelief.

"Well, maybe he meant to say that he was going to i borrow /i a library book," Ron reasoned after swallowing his large mouthful. "Yuck! I think that one of those was earwax!"

"Oh, don't be so naïve, Ronald!" Hermione snapped, snatching the packet of beans out of his hand. "Harry has been acting strange lately. You must have noticed."

"Not really I--" Ron started to say but stopped short when Hermione, sighing in irritation, jumped out of her seat and began heading towards the boys' dormitories.

"Can I at least have my beans back?" Ron asked, reluctantly following her when she didn't answer.

"He's hiding something from us; I just know it," Hermione was muttering to herself when Ron entered the room. She was rummaging around in Harry's trunk, throwing socks and school books onto the floor in her haste.

"You shouldn't be going through his things, Hermione." Ron picked up his packet of beans which Hermione had neglected by 'Quidditch through the Ages' and the pair of foul mustard yellow socks that Uncle Vernon had once given Harry. "He won't like it."

"He won't even notice." Hermione's voice was slightly muffled, her head fully inside the trunk. "His trunk is a mess! It's almost as bad as yours!"

"You should still respect his privacy," Ron replied while picking up 'Quidditch through the Ages' and lying down on his bed.

"Privacy!" Hermione cried, emerging from the now empty trunk. "I'm starting to worry about him. He hardly ever eats, I have to force him to concentrate on his homework, he keeps sneaking out at night, and now he's starting to avoid me!"

"I can't imagine why," Ron muttered, idly turning a page in 'Quidditch through the Ages'.

Hermione didn't hear him; she was too busy poking around in the contents of Harry's trunk, which were now spread out on the floor. "I'm scared that there is something seriously wrong with him!"

"We should wait for him to talk to us, instead of going through his things. What do you hope to find in there anyway?" Ron asked, still not taking his eyes off the Quidditch book.

"I don't know." Hermione heaved another sigh, throwing the Marauder's Map back into Harry's trunk along with some quills and a Potions textbook. "Aren't you even the slightest bit concerned? Doesn't it bother you that he has shut us out completely?!"

Ron was too immersed in his book to hear her question. When she didn't get a reply, Hermione threw the remaining items back into Harry's trunk, distressed that she hadn't found anything that might have explained Harry's recent detachment. She vented some of the pressure of dissatisfaction by kicking the skirting on the wall beside the base of Harry's trunk.

A neat section of it immediately fell forward and collapsed on the floor with a soft thud. She knelt down and peered into the hole it created in the wall. Something was hidden there.

Carefully, she reached in and drew it out. It was a notebook, with dusty back covers and a scarlet cloth spine. She opened the first page and saw Harry's familiar handwriting. She had found Harry's diary.

A small part of her recoiled at the thought of reading it, but the desire to know what Harry had written overcame her fear of gaining insight into his undoubtedly complex private thoughts.

She threw a quick look at Ron knowing that he would object to doing such a thing, but he hadn't noticed anything. He remained lying on his stomach on his bed, engrossed in the book, absentmindedly chewing on his Every Flavour Beans.

Not wanting to alert him, Hermione quietly sat down with the diary on Harry's bed, and opened it to the first page.

_Two more days, six more hours, forty-eight more minutes._

_I can't sleep, the waiting is unbearable. But I'm used to waiting. I know how to be patient. _

_Sometimes I wish I could tell someone. But there is no one to tell. Sometimes I think about telling Ron or Hermione. It just seems weird and wrong. They wouldn't understand. Nobody would._

_I can keep it all wrapped up inside of me. My secret. Mine._

_Two more days, six more hours, thirty-two more minutes._

The next couple of lines caused Hermione to frown; they were just made up of numbers.

_74 16 4 12 8 2 44 18 3…_

What did the numbers mean? They weren't dates, nor did they suggest anything else Hermione could think of. She flipped forward through the pages and saw that there were more paragraphs of numbers, divided into groups of three. The numbers were often written in long sequences, scribbled and jumbled close together so that the hasty digits were barely legible. Harry had obviously written them in high passion.

Interspersed between the numbers were ordinary jottings about school and Quidditch, reassuring to Hermione because they sounded familiar, like the way Harry would sound if he was talking to her about the Gryffindor team's latest tactics.

Then, among the numbers and the scribbles of everyday events, there were more troubling paragraphs, much like the first paragraph she had just read.

_One more day, two more hours, twenty-three more minutes._

_Hermione interrogated me again._

_I'm used to her questioning me. I expect it even. Only, there's a difference these days. Now, I really don't want her to know anything. She'll never find out though. Nobody will._

_I'm like two people. There's the one they all want me to be, the hero, the proud Gryffindor and the saviour of the wizarding world; and the one I really am, that's so dark and strong and deep that sometimes I can't stop it bursting out of me._

_Like tonight when we were talking. Well, she was talking, asking me if I was okay._

_I felt the real me answer. I didn't shout or lose my temper. I was just cold and quiet and sure. I said I was fine._

_Her concerns don't touch me; nothing really touches me, except things she will never know about._

_She kept going, asking if I wanted to talk, reassuring me I could trust her, and saying that I could tell her anything I wanted._

_My mouth stayed shut. I could never tell. Because I know that what I am and what I have could never be understood by anyone. _

_One more day, one more hour, thirty-six more minutes._

_Just the knowledge of my secret, the beautiful memories that it gives me, makes everything bearable._

_But then, there are times when I can't stand the waiting, and I doubt myself. 'Who are you kidding?' Mister heroic Gryffindor says in my head. But it's easy to silence him. And the easiness makes me sure that I'm real and what I have is real. _

_I'm not a hero. I'm just a boy. A boy with a secret…_

_One more day._

It was the entries like these that troubled Hermione. Not just their content, but the way they linked the accounts of everyday experiences to the fierce jumbles of numbers.

What secret was hidden in the numbers? Whatever it was, Hermione had to find out. Harry's current behaviour was frightening her, and her fears had been dramatically heightened after reading his diary.

She scrutinised the numbers for a long time, studying them carefully as though they were a particularly difficult Ancient Runes question.

There wasn't a puzzle or riddle that Hermione couldn't solve, yet the number code in front of her remained an enigma. She looked away from the diary in frustration, to see that Ron had a similar look to hers on his pale, freckled face.

"What's wrong?" she asked half-heartedly, returning her focus to the numbers.

"Someone's underlined words in here," Ron replied, holding up 'Quidditch through the Ages', though Hermione wasn't paying much attention. "Not full sentences, just random words. It's bloody distracting."

He threw the book back into Harry's trunk carelessly. "I don't know why Harry borrows that book out from the library so often anyway. It's not interesting enough to want to read it twice." He lay back down in his bed, flopping his arms over his face, as though he was about to fall asleep.

The skin on the back of Hermione's neck suddenly prickled with cold. Before she knew what she was doing, she reached into the trunk and uncovered the book. Something about what Ron had said seemed gravely significant, yet she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

She flipped the book open. Ron was right; some words had been faintly underlined in pencil. She frowned at the pencil marks, the same way that she had frowned while reading Harry's diary.

She looked back at Harry's diary and felt nothing but baffled impatience with a code she couldn't unlock. The two books seemed to contain some familiarity that maddeningly swam just beneath her consciousness. She was about to discard the Quidditch book when frustration made the connection for her.

She realised that Harry's coded entries were written in pencil, not ink like the regular ones; the same soft, blunt pencil that had marked the Quidditch book. She smoothed both sets of books, glancing triumphantly from one to the other.

She chose the first group of numbers in the front pages of the diary.

_74 16 4_

She turned to page seventy-four of 'Quidditch through the Ages', counted down to line sixteen, and then located the fourth word in that line, '_he_', which was underlined as she had hoped.

She repeated this process with the next group of numbers, revealing the word '_touches_'.

The third group gave her the last word of the first sentence: '_me_'.

'_He touches me_.'

Hermione licked her dry lips and smiled in satisfaction. She had cracked Harry's code. The trios of numbers stood for page, line and word, in 'Quidditch through the Ages'.

'Now,' Hermione thought. 'Now I'll know what he's been keeping from me.'

She retrieved a pencil and a piece of parchment from Harry's trunk, in order to translate the numbered entries into words as she decoded them.

She took the next chuck of numbers and slowly counted out their placing. After a while, she had decoded the entries and had them written as words in front of her.

_He touches me. I can tell he wants to. _

_I touch him in return. I can't help it._

_Once we start, we can't stop._

_We touch each other, shaking the whole time._

_It always happens like this, and I never want it to change. I want to remain like this with him forever._

_We lie down together and kiss for a long time. We touch each other everywhere. Our energy could light the stars above us. _

_I never want to stop. But eventually we have to. It's not fair._

_He asks if he can see me like this again. He always asks me this after our secret meetings._

_Yes, yes, yes. My answer is always yes. Even if what we are doing is wrong. I don't care._

_All I care about is him touching me._

_I don't care about who we are._

_I don't care about what we're supposed to do._

_I don't care about what people would say if they found out._

_I don't care about anything else._

_I love him._

The impoverished and eloquent second-hand words of Harry's lament washed over Hermione.

'_Our energy could light the stars above us_.'

"The Astronomy Tower."

"Huh?" Ron asked, removing his arms from his face to look confusedly at Hermione.

"He's in the Astronomy Tower," she replied enigmatically. "He's with him in the Astronomy Tower."

"With who?" Ron asked, sitting up and staring incredulously at her. "What are you doing?"

She was on her feet heading for the door.

"Who's Harry with? Hermione!" Ron repeated, but she ignored him, slamming the dormitory door shut behind her.

It was the most disturbing, yet the i hottest /i thing she had ever read.

'_He touches me_.'

Harry's words crept in Hermione's blood stream as she flew out of the portrait hole and hurried down the corridor. It wasn't just the words themselves – since they were so bare – but the thick, impassioned, glutinous intensity that was locked into the unravelled code.

_Tonight was different from the others. We still touched and we still kissed, but when came time to stop he wouldn't let go. I was glad that he wouldn't._

_He whispered in my ear, words that are too beautiful to be written in numbers. I don't need to write them down anyway. I'll never forget._

_He told me that waiting for our meetings was unbearable. He begged that we meet more often._

_I should have told him then. I should have told him that I love him. But the real me is a coward._

_Instead, I answered him in the way I always do. Yes, yes, yes. My answer will always be yes._

_I hardly have to wait this time. I get to see him tomorrow._

The very clumsiness of the available words, the make-do of the language, stirred a response in Hermione.

As she thundered up the numerous staircases, the scene began to make itself vivid in her mind's eye: Harry bending his head and capturing the mouth of another boy. Harry hadn't mentioned his name in the scribbled pages, but he had violently painted him, coloured him out of nothing with words that sometimes didn't even fit together.

_I see him every night now. It's still not enough. If it were up to me I'd never let him go._

_It's hard getting past Hermione, Ron doesn't seem too concerned. _

('_Hermione_' and '_Ron_' were two of the words that were written plain, because they weren't available in the Quidditch book.)

_Sometimes I'm lucky and can slip out of the common room unnoticed. But she's always there to question me when I get back. I'm running out of excuses. Soon I'll have to start using my invisibility cloak. I would have already, but it seems too desperate. _

_I am desperate. I want to tell him that I love him but the words won't come out. It's not that I'm unsure. In fact, it's the one thing in this world that I am sure of._

Amongst the hot and heavy words, Hermione had discovered a different Harry.

He wasn't the same Harry who fooled around on the Quidditch Pitch with the rest of the Gryffindor team, not even the version of him who fervently defended Dumbledore and rebelled against the Ministry.

He was loose and reckless, and infinitely more passionate.

_I said it. He didn't hear me. I said it louder; loud enough for the stars to hear._

_He said it back to me. There was no silence or hesitation. _

_He said it as though it was effortless, and for that moment it didn't feel like us. It felt normal, like we were an ordinary couple who didn't have to hide. _

_I was wrong. The secret is not mine. It belongs to the two of us._

_I like the sound of that. _

_The two of us._

_The two of us._

That last line, over and over, written with such passion that it scored the underlying pages. The imprint of the numbers and their related meaning seemed to burn into Hermione's skin, and she shivered with the impatience to discover who it was that Harry loved so tragically, and why Harry could never bring himself to write their name, even in his private diary.

She stopped in front of the old wooden door of the Astronomy Tower, pausing briefly to catch her breath. Although she had followed Harry's trail to the secluded tower, Hermione didn't know what she wanted to say to him, exactly. It was just that there should have been at least some acknowledgement between them of the situation, some honest transaction made and recorded for the future, so that he would never hide something this important from her again.

Once her panting had slightly subsided and her pulse had returned to normal, she carefully pushed the door.

As soon as it was opened, she felt diminished and squat, like she was trapped at the wrong end of one of the Astronomy Tower's monstrous telescopes. She had no idea how long she stood frozen in the doorway. In truth, it was probably no more than two or three seconds. But she knew that the image of her best friend and Draco Malfoy with their arms and legs entwined and their mouths greedily fastened together was already indelible.

The Harry she knew was complicated and so different from all the other boys his age, but at this moment he looked so normal. He seemed completely unconnected to any of the mess and darkness that was constantly looming closer at the promise of the Final Battle.

In the unguarded moment when her eyes rested upon them, Hermione saw that Malfoy was different tonight as well, and the recognition of it arrested the momentum of bitterness in her. Malfoy was transfigured by passion. It washed the hauteur off his face and left it loose and vulnerable. He wasn't a Death Eater's son. He was Harry's alone.

In an unregarded hollow within herself, Hermione felt sympathy expanding, the pressure of it tightening against her chest wall, overwhelming her previous frustration and curiosity.

She didn't move an inch, realising why an uncalculated chord of warmth was suddenly sounding within her.

It was the war that affected them all. Hogwarts reverberated with sadness. It caused Harry to become distant and caused her to overreact and smother him with her concerns. The sadness was thick in the air, and as blind and all-pervasive as the Killing Curse that would either strike Voldemort or Harry dead.

The peculiar taint of it clung to Harry and Malfoy, and it crept through her own tissues like a disease. Now she saw the ravages of it even in the invincible Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. Under the bright, healthy skin from all the Quidditch matches and studying by the lake, lay the invisible cancer of sadness. The spirit of the incoming war.

It was clear that Harry and Malfoy were trying to dispel it, trying to rub some warmth back into each other.

The moonlight flooding the tower was warm, and in its silver reassurance, Hermione looked at the happy, peaceful boys in front of her. The possibility to interfere had been there, lying in the no man's land between them, and she had seen it and chosen not to pick it up. It would be wrong to impede on the only good commodity of the war. She silently closed the door and began to head back to Gryffindor Tower.

She smiled the whole way back, feeling the pleasure of discovering Harry's secret and the satisfaction of knowing that Harry was wrong. The secret, and the warmth that came with it, wasn't just Harry's and Malfoy's, it was also hers. It belonged to the three of them.

**Author's Notes:** Please review!


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